Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed.

Or you are the only animal.

Who can think, who can reason, who can read.

From KCRW, Santa Monica, I'm Michael Silverblatt, and this is Bookworm. Today, I am happy

to have as my guest, Melissa Pritchard, whose new novel, Late Blumer, has just been published

by Doubleday. Her earlier books include previous novels,

Celine of the Spirits and Phoenix, as well as previous books, collections of short stories,

disappearing Anjanoe, The Instinct for Bliss, and Spirit Seizures. Late Bloomer has just been published by Doubleday.

Now, you have really gone the whole gamut as a writer from university press to literary press

to small private presses like Zoland and the Ontario press run by Raymond Smith and Joyce Carol Oates

and now to Double Day. What has that ascent been like or is it an ascent?

I suppose on one level, I mean, people would perceive it as an ascent and I did as well.

But on the other hand, it's just movement from one form of publication to another. And I've been treated well in every instance, every single instance. You hear all the talk as a writer about small presses versus large presses versus so the smaller presses pay more attention and the large

ones don't keep you in print as long. You hear all of that, but for me it's always the work,

the intimate act of writing the book and then the intimate act of working with the editors

and the editors who are peculiarly attracted to whatever book I've written and want to publish it.

So it's more about the relationship between myself and those editors that is special to me.

Because what I sensed over this arc of books that I've read is the emergence of a full-throttled comic voice.

And in a certain sense,

it accompanies the implicit larger audience for novels

...